INDIRECT Democracy

In the USA we have indirect democracy as opposed to direct democracy (one person, one vote, directly for the candidate).

Two things are involved here: The Electoral College & The DNC (or RNC).

Let’s take the DNC, the Democratic National Convention which is operated or managed by the Democratic National Committee. Well, actually, put that on hold for now, let’s talk about the Electoral College first.

Basically, since the Country’s founding (post revolutionary war), we had a largely rural and farming population and of course even in the cities there were no “planes, trains & automobiles” … yet! So there was this system in place to have Electors selected to represent the voters in each area of each state and they would “ride” to the state conventions. (Correct me if I’m wrong, because all of this is very vague to me as I have only just begun to try to understand this process).

I used to vote and not really think about it. But for some reason, lately, I’ve begun to ask myself: “What EXACTLY or HOW exactly, does the Electoral college work?” For that matter “What are SUPER delegates?” “What’s a regular delegate?” “Who elects or selects the delegates and super delegates?” “How does one become a delegate or super delegate?” “Are delegates, super delegates and Electors the same people? Sometimes? Never?”

These are questions I’ll be looking into over the next year, but hopefully I will be able to “nail this down” in the next 30 days or so, hopefully in the next few weeks!

I can hear it now “Why should I even bother to vote if we don’t even have a direct democracy?” My answer would immediately be “Don’t be such a defeatist” Sure there are things in the system that we don’t like, but we have to work with what *is* not with what we dream up. The fact is, we can work with this system. This system of democracy we have (okay, we live in a Democratic Republic, I’ll make a separate post on THAT later), but this is a Republic in which we have *indirect* democracy, we do NOT have direct democracy.

Our votes count, but there are a lot of things involved besides our (the hoi polloi) voting.

Once we understand the reality and look at this as adults and not as whiny children crying about how we don’t get our way all the time, we can begin to see what I call “the game”.

Of course there are consequences and big life changing things at stake in “the game”

I’ve also referred to politics as a kind of “war”, with an air game and a ground game etc, I’ll get into that later (yes, in another post). For now, let’s just all understand a few basic things: Voting counts and elections have consequences (Supreme Court Justices and decisions like “Citizen’s United” or Roe v. Wade). Whoever is in the Whitehouse is not all powerful such as a King but they are a third (1/3) of our Federal Government. The President and his staff etc can do certain things and they do have certain powers, but is not a King, is not all powerful. Congress is probably MORE important in many ways, and as I have already mentioned … The US Supreme Court is very influential and make decisions that affect our lives. This is important stuff people!

Also (and I know I am repeating myself, because this is important) don’t get freaked out over the Electoral College and Super Delegates (or just regular Delegates) let’s try to understand how this works. We can be more effective as voters if we understand how “the machine” works. Okay? To be continued…